1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a latching system and, more particularly, to a latching system having a permanent magnet and a latch release system having an electromagnetic coil.
2. Brief Description of Prior Developments
WO 2006/026035 A1 discloses an electronic device having a latch with a pair of magnets or a magnet and a ferrous material member. In mobile telephones, there are an increasing number of mechanisms that are used for various transformations of mechanical elements. This includes, for example, the opening and closing of a small door (e.g. for SIM and memory cards), the releasing of a battery cover, and the opening and closing of the product itself (e.g. in the case of a fold- or slide-product).
The various mechanisms used so far very often have limitations to the quality of “feel” experienced by the user. Furthermore, size and complexity is also often a disadvantage of the purely mechanical mechanisms; since they need to be physically close to a push button (or other means of mechanical interface) accessible to the user. Activating the mechanism by means other than a pure mechanical actuation from the user is not possible. This means that an additional motor or electromechanical actuator is needed if actions are to be executable from the product's software.
In the case of the opening of a fold product, such as a flip-phone type of telephone for example, the vast majority of the products in the market are operated by the user manually opening the product at least about 50 percent of its total opening angle before it will automatically open the rest of the opening angle (such as about 90 degrees of a 170 degrees fold product total opening angle). Some products have emerged with a purely mechanical “push-to-open” functionality such as the NOKIA Model 6131. However, they all suffer from the limitations noted above. A few mobile phone products have been launched with an electromotor doing the opening and closing work of housing members.
Permanent magnets have been used in some products to keep the product closed, such as the NOKIA Model 9300 Communicator for example. In some cases, also as part of the opening release mechanism, by physically dislocating the magnets, thus weakening the magnet field, this can allow the product's hinge spring to open the product as described in WO 2006/026035 A1.
There is a desire for a new type of system for latching and unlatching housing components in a hand-held portable electronic device.